heart ... or head?

I moved to this house when I left ex in very difficult circumstances. When I walked through the door it was as if it smiled at me and said, "You're home." It's always been my safe place no matter how ill I feel. It was slightly more than I could afford so definitely a heart decision.

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Or get a lodger in, like I intend to do when DS leaves.

We made one major mistake many years ago when buying our second home,we went with our head the reason being we had a buyer in place for the house we where selling and needed to have school place secured for the children so we signed for a dormer bungalow even though I knew in my heart of hearts it was not what I really wanted,move on two years and new baby expected so we put up bungalow for sale and sold in weeks giving us the chance to buy a four bed house in the same area but closer to the village,we spent over 20yrs in that house and I loved every brick it was built with,after DS2 left home it was far too big for us and off we went to pastures new,this apartment we have now is small but meets our needs in every way,modern airy and every modern convienience and only one bedroom so we can say no to any one who may wish to stay.

Money has nothing to do with moving into a house. I have now lived in two social housing homes and it was my heart which told me everything would be fine and the houses are the right ones when I looked round them for the first times. I was married and lived in our paid for marital homes, the first was a lovely little cottage but the second, which we got to be nearer my parents, was awful, had an awful feeling about it and the one where me husband and I split up from.

Homes can be happy, regardless of where they are, it's the feeling you get from them and the people you fill them with.

Its fabulous here in this market town we have the fastest internet speed (Infintity I think its called) you can get so we are all very happy with it. Mobile reception is good too and have only had one power cut for a few minutes in nearly five years. We are very lucky here, good facilities, main line rail links and good roads to major towns which are far enough away not to encroach and its not a high cost housing area either.

Teetime you do not have to live in a remote area to have poor communications. We live in 'Science Vale'. The centre of high tech and innovative industry in Oxfordshire, or so the publicity says. So, living barely two miles from two major European research centres, on a par with the Large Hadron Collider, if our internet speed reaches 2Mb we throw a party, except that we live in a mobile notspot, and as for digital radio reception or FM.............. I rely on long wave and Radio 4 for radio listening - and it is not just us, almost every village in this highly populated area suffers from the same problems and I have no reason to believe that reception is any better in much of our local market towns.

Oh - heart for us. As I write I am gazing at the lovely view!

It was the least sensible thing we could have done at the time - we planned to move nearer DD3's school and finished up much further away - she had an hour's journey to school on a slow bus that went all over the place to every village in the way - but she loved it as it was like being on holiday and taking a tour bus through the most beautiful places you can imagine. It was she who encouraged us to buy this house.

And now that we are getting more decrepit the hill we are on is ridiculous - but that view surpasses everything for me.

For us house buying has always had to be head as the budget has never been generous but we did buy our cottage in the Yorkshire Dales on heart and it was a big mistake. We didn't take enough consideration of the practicalities of living in a very small village with no facilities. After this we took a very pragmatic decision to live in a small market town in a new build house and although there are no beautiful views the house is warm and efficient in terms of heating, utilities work all the time instead of constant power disruptions and days without telephones and no mobile signal, slow broadband, we have more space and we can walk into town to the library, shops, hairdressers, doctors etc and DH is right near a large indoor bowls club so that's him out of my hair

Until we bought our current house. our choice was always restricted by our financial circumstances. When home buying I have 'fallen in love' with several houses and then been unable to buy them because we couldn't sell our current home/get a mortgage on the new home.

However we have never had a house we didn't really like and weren't excited to be buying and enjoyed living in. I think this is mainly because we are both interested in houses and housing, we cannot resist an estate agent's window and we tend to think about the next move well inn advance.

We bought our current house 20 years ago, with retirement in mind; a lovely old village home with a large garden. We are now in our early 70s and the house and garden are still ideal and manageable, but we are already thinking that some time in the next 10 years time we may find it too big to manage so we are already idly considering what our next move will be. When the time comes to move, we will know what we want, have researched the areas, properties and prices thoroughly and when we see the house to see us out we will know instantly.

I'm with you, J52. We bought a house (not in the uk) for the view.
It was night time and the Estate Agent had left the keys in the office ( 2hr drive away) so we couldn't view inside.

Certainly not when we bought the house I talked about- had anything gone wrong we would have been in deep doodoo. This time round, yes- again we let our heart rule our head buying this 16C old vicarage in the mountains- but now the kids are grown up, it is indeed very different. But yes, I see what you mean, we've been lucky, and I do truly appreciate it.

Can I add a little proviso?
I dont mean anything by it. But I think that you have lots of money/assets?
I think that it is a little bit easier to let the heart rule the head in those circumstances. Because if it did or does go wrong, there is financial back up to correct things once again.

When we bought our Scottish home, it was not at all what we set out to buy. The view took both our hearts and breath away!

The fact that we had to organise builders to demolish the whole inside while living 300+ miles away was not a consideration. Also, the steep hill will keep us fit in old age . Head didn't factor much! x

gjwhen my heart has led me into difficult situations (as it has), I use my head to lead me out!